Chapter 18:
The room they were in was wide and relatively empty save for a few benches and a monitor that required the chip they needed to access it. They realized now that the room they were in was a viewing room. There was a door on the other side that tried to slide open but seemed to struggle with a loud hiss. Vines had crept across the door, keeping it shut, but eventually, they were pried off the more the door slid open.
The hallway they came across was very dimly lit and narrow. It was covered in vines and it reeked. Like the smell from when they first walked into the area only it was concentrated in a small space. There were scientific pieces of equipment lining shelves that were a mess as they were entangled in the plants. Shining a flashlight up near the ceiling, there was a body hanging that was being held up by the vines. Only, it didn't look like any normal body that they had ever seen.
It looked like a human body fused with the plants. There were vines and leaves sprouting all over it and covered parts of the body. The face was like a skull with its hollowed-out eyes and its mouth seemed to split down the middle with sharp teeth in its wake. It was like the plants had completely taken over.
They passed it quietly, in hopes, it wouldn't move and were relieved that it didn't. On a cart, they found some more gunpowder and were about to move on when the sound of a mix between gurgling and clicking caught the two survivors' attention. From the pathway they were about to go through, one of those plant bodies that was lying on the floor began to get up as it noticed their presence.
"What the fuck!?" Veronica hissed. Leon took out his gun and began shooting at the thing. Nothing seemed to stop it till one of the bullets hit one of the many orange orbs on the zombie's body. "Aim for those!" It took a little maneuvering in the cramped room since the thing moved eerily quick, but they were able to knock it down.
However, much to their disappointment, the body was still moving even on the floor. They watched as vines were slithering across the body towards the injured parts. Not wanting to stick around to see what happens, they quickly ran out of there and into what looked like the greenhouse control room.
Many of the computers didn't look like they worked, except for a machine with a glowing yellow light at the top and a keypad with symbols on the buttons below a monitor. On the said monitor, there was a map of the greenhouse and there were two areas that were labeled as locked. Meaning that there were two doors they could go through.
Right where they ran in, there was a counter in the middle of the room that had a flash grenade that Leon took since his partner was still stocked up. Walking up to the machine with the yellow light, they realized it was beeping because whatever it was made for, had an action implemented. It must have been on some sort of timer because it began to do something.
"Dispensing solution now," the automated voice stated over the intercom.
"Wait, what solution?" the brunette questioned as they watched the sprinkler systems spray the solution over the greenhouse. Nothing else seemed to happen with the plants, which probably meant it was helping the monstrous things grow. A few moments later, a dispersal cartridge was ejected out of the machine, allowing for the girl to take. It was now empty and could probably hold something else inside.
"We might need that. Keep it on you," her partner informed her. They went back to the monitor to take a look at the map of the greenhouse. The two areas that were locked were in a drug testing lab that was just around the corner from the control room and a ladder just down the path from that. It seemed simple enough. But when were things ever simple in Raccoon City?
Deciding on the drug testing lab first since it was closest, they walked out into the greenhouse and regretted it immediately. The odor they had smelled from the entirety of the area was even more intense in the room.
Looking up among the plants, they could see countless dead bodies hanging around, many being turned into plant monsters. That's when they realized what the smell was. It was a combination of the stench of decaying bodies and the mustiness of plants.
"I've heard of the urban legend that humans would make great plant fertilizer, but this is next level," Veronica muttered as they carefully walked down the metal steps into the room. They turned a corner to head towards the way they needed to go and saw one of those plant zombies near where the ladder was. It hadn't spot them yet, so they quickly ran into the drug testing lab before it could.
Luckily for them, the room was empty and deemed safe once in it. There was only one body inside that was in a yellow hazmat suit, but they presumed it as fully dead. The room was brightly lit and still clean, but their search for an ID chip was futile. It was beginning to look like they were going to have to get it from the man who is being held up by the giant plant.
They did, however, find something interesting that could help them with that. It was a Herbicide Synthesis protocol sheet. Its purpose was to inform people on how to kill the plants in the greenhouse in case of an emergency. Leon picked it up and read over it before handing it to his partner to look at.
"Plant 43, huh?" she questioned.
"Looks like that dispenser is going to come in handy just like I thought. We can use it to kill the plant and get the chip."
"But it's asking for 'the required amount of UMB No. 21'? I don't know about you, but I failed Chemistry in high school."
"Well, it has to be in here, right? We can figure it out!" He glanced around the room and noticed a machine that was gated up in the corner. There was a red light on at the top and next to it was a combination of symbols that looked like the ones they saw on the keypad in the control room. It must be the code for opening the gate. Only, the last two symbols were scratched off leaving them a little helpless.
"That must be it. Maybe we can find the code somewhere around here? We still have to go down the ladder." Taking one more look over the room, they found a grenade and a large gunpowder can then walked back out into the greenhouse. They carefully peeked around the corner to see what the path looked like to the ladder and found the plant zombie they saw earlier still standing close by.
Leon took out his gun and began shooting from behind the wall. Once it was finally knocked back, the duo ran for the ladder, only to find it shut and locked! There was a code written on the top that had Veronica stumbling for a pen, but was interrupted halfway by another zombie crawling up onto its feet from the floor. Doing her best to crudely write what she saw, they booked it back to the control room and to the keypad to unlock the ladder.
The code the girl wrote was messy, but it was the best she could do in a short amount of time. It took a few tries to figure out the last symbol, but eventually, the system okayed the code given and unlocked the ladder. After a quick reload of his gun, Leon led the way out only to find the zombies closer than they thought. He was about to shoot when his partner grabbed his arm.
"This way! We'll go around!" she urged, leading them down the center path of the room. Looping around, they were able to make it past the zombies and to the ladder safely. The horrible clicking sound they heard heading their way just as they were descending down was terrifying. But they both made it down in the nick of time.
At the bottom of the ladder, they found themselves in a small underground pipe room. It was narrow and dark, but clear of any dangers. Peering around the ladder, they found a table sitting at one end of the room. On it was a map to the East Area, which they were in, and a large can of gunpowder. They decided to use this moment to make more ammo for themselves and to check up on their inventory. While looking over the map, they realized there was a door on the other side of the room that led to more parts of the lab that they didn't see upstairs.
"Just how big is this place? It feels like it never ends," Veronica whispered, unsure of whether something could be waiting in the shadows. They couldn't be too careful.
"Who knows. We still have a whole area waiting for us besides this one," he paused as he studied the map. "Looks like there's a stairwell just on the other side of this next room. It'll loop us back to the waiting room and then we can head back to the control room without having to go back through the greenhouse."
With a gameplan in mind, they finished packing everything up and then began making their way to the door on the other side of the room. Leon cracked it open a smidge then walked in first with his partner behind him. The place was dark, barely lit by emergency lights dotted around the room. According to the map, this was a lounge, but it was also connected to a server room and low temp lab.
The server room was the first room they encountered, but the door was locked since it was an electronic door and the electricity was out in this part of the building. They carefully crept towards the lounge and found the bodies of scientists lying dead around the floor. There was blood splattered everywhere and part of the ceiling looked like it had been torn through. Surveying the long scratch marks on the wall, they could tell it was the work of lickers. Knowing that, they were put on edge as they searched around the room.
Taking any precautions they had, they used knives to destroy the brains of any of the bodies they came across, as well as checking their wristbands for the chip they needed. Unfortunately, none of them had what they needed and the option of getting it from the greenhouse was becoming more of a possibility.
While searching the room, they found some shotgun ammo, a green herb, and to their surprise, a trophy. Veronica picked it up, curious as to what it was for. It was gold and shaped like a DNA helix. She rotated it to try and read the plaque when something on the bottom of it caught her eye. Turning it upside down, she found a familiar-looking code.
"Well, what do you know?" she muttered, turning it to Leon so that he could see.
"We might just be able to pull this off," he said while he pulled out the little book and quickly wrote the code down for later. After setting it down, Leon gestured to an electric box in the corner of the room.
"It's like the one in the nap room. I'm pretty sure now that it's for the power."
"Now, all we'll need is the box that turns it on."
"Hopefully, we'll find it here somewhere. Let's keep moving."
They began making their way forward and noticed the low temp room as they grew closer to the exit door. That door wouldn't open either just like the server room. They would need the power on if they were ever going to need to use that room. Just as they were about 10 feet from the exit, the sound of thumping from above them stopped them in their tracks.
All of a sudden, the vent on the ceiling broke and fell to the floor, with a licker sitting on top of it. The pair froze and watched as another licker crawled out from the hole and across the ceiling. Veronica nearly had a heart attack when a hand touched her arm and began pulling her backward slowly. Each step they took almost seemed to be followed, but the lickers couldn't sniff them out yet.
They backed into the lounge, adrenaline pumping in their veins and sweat dripping down their faces. No matter how many times they had encountered lickers, it never got any less scary. Her back gave a phantom ache while they watched them crawl around looking for prey. But they were still blocking the path forward. Carefully looking around, the trophy had quickly caught her eye. She quietly picked it up and signaled to Leon her plan.
With a nod, he watched as she chucked it towards the server room, letting it hit the wall with a loud clang. The lickers' heads whipped up at the sound then they quickly jumped towards it, trying to find the source. Once they were preoccupied on that side of the room, the survivors quickly but quietly made their way towards the exit. Luckily enough, the lickers were kept busy enough for them to escape unscathed. Once the door closed behind them, the two let out a sigh of relief.
"I fucking hate this place," Veronica hissed. Leon took her hand in his to squeeze comfortingly.
"We're almost out of here. C'mon," he replied. They walked through a short hallway to the door on the other side that opened to the stairwell that they saw on the map. It was just as dark and dimly lit as the previous section they were in, so it was hard to see what was awaiting them. Just as they entered the room, a growl from the corner caught them by surprise as they watched a zombie trying to get onto its feet. Veronica quickly took it out before it could fight them on the stairs. After the many encounters on staircases, they've come to realize they hate them.
They carefully continued up the stairs, uneasy by the silence since the power was out. After a few flights, they were just about halfway to the top when a body suddenly plunged down from above them, hitting the floor with a loud thud. Veronica yelped in surprise and watched as Leon stabbed it in the head before it could get up. Once he was done, they noticed at the top of that specific flight were vines hanging in the corners of the walls. They didn't see any bodies hanging around, but they remained cautious just in case.
Finally, after one more flight, they reached the top of the stairs where there awaited an open door. The room looked like a storage room and there was another door on the other side that would lead back to the waiting room. Just as they walked in, they could hear another growl from behind a box near the other door. A lady zombie stood up and began stumbling over to them, so Leon began shooting at it. It took a few shots, but she went down eventually.
"Is it sad that these zombies are more annoying than anything? Like they're not even scary anymore," Leon said while putting his gun away.
"After everything we've gone through, I don't blame you for feeling that," Veronica replied before beginning her search of the room. The room was a mess, clearly, people were already looting it for medical supplies to fight off the virus. Only nothing worked by the state of things in the lab. They were able to find some more gunpowder, a box of handgun ammo, and an electric box similar to the one down in the lounge.
In that box, sat a piece of machinery that looked like the picture they had seen on the other boxes before. It had a screen with wavy lines across it as well as knobs for moving them and words used for specific settings above it. When turned on, it let out two high pitched drones that changed when moved. Reading a label on the back, it said it was a signal modulator and its purpose was for equipment maintenance. They realized it would be useful in putting the power back on in specific areas of the lab.
They were about to leave when Leon noticed a piece of paper sitting on a chair. He picked it up and held it up for the both of them to see. It was scrawled messily by someone who was clearly in a rush.
"'Everybody's turned...vegefied...They keep coming back, again and again. Burn them all. Burn them until their whole body is black as ash. There's no other way,'" he read. "It must be those plant things. I'm...gonna call them Ivys." He reached around and took out his flamethrower. "I think this will be useful in getting rid of them."
"I'm glad we picked it up then. If they keep coming back, that means that the ones we put down are probably back up now."
"Which also means we're going to have to get through more of them since we have to get the chip from the greenhouse."
"Figures," she sighed as they walked out into the waiting room. Things looked the same as they made their way towards the control room, but when they walked into where the Ivys were, they found that the zombie that was hanging had fallen down to join the other. That one had healed itself up from the earlier bullets shot at it and was now on its feet.
Quietly, they snuck towards the zombies and right when they were behind them, Leon unleashed a blast of fire over them. The heat of the flames was intense at such a close range as they could feel it against their numbed skin.
At first, it didn't seem like it was working since the monsters just stalked towards them, but after a moment of being backed away, the bodies suddenly collapsed onto the floor. The Ivys rolled around trying to put out the flames before eventually succumbing and bursting into flames. The bodies were charred black and looked like mere skeletons instead of zombies.
Relieved that they never had to deal with those specific Ivys, they quickly ran into the control room. With the new code they had found, they quickly typed it into the keypad and unlocked the machine in the drug testing lab. Once it unlocked, the pair prepared themselves for the greenhouse before walking in.
Luckily for them, the Ivys were wandering around away from the path they needed to take so it was easy to get to. The machine's gate had lifted and the light at the top had turned green. Veronica put the empty cartridge into a slot and watched as the machine began to move things around. There were three tubes inside it, each a different size and there was green liquid in two of them.
"Manual mode engaged. Adjust amount of solution to match cartridge capacity," an automated voice said from the machine. A red line appeared on the first tube showing how much liquid needed to fit in it. There were three buttons beneath the tubes that had symbols showing them which ones rotated and how to fill them.
"Ok. This shouldn't be too difficult, right?" the young girl said as she reached for the buttons. It turned out to be more difficult than they thought. They each kept pushing buttons hoping for it to work, but they always missed the mark by just a bit over or under.
"What kind of fucking facility is this?!" Leon cried out in frustration. Veronica rubbed her face to try and calm herself down.
"Are we dumb or something?!" she groaned before letting out a loud sigh.
"No, we're not dumb. This machine is dumb!" he huffed, swatting it with the back of his hand. Only he accidentally hit the metal part pretty hard and pulled back with a hiss. "Ow!" He grasped at his hand to fight the pain but was interrupted by a small giggle. Turning to Veronica, he found her trying to stop herself from laughing but she couldn't help but let them escape.
"What's so funny?"
"Sorry! I...I just had a thought...It's not that funny...but we've been through hell tonight. Zombies, lickers, Ivys and after everything, we're being beaten by a machine! And it's not even trying to kill us," she said before bursting into laughter. Leon blinked at her a few times as he processed the joke before he found himself laughing alongside her.
Maybe it was a coping mechanism, maybe they were just tired, or maybe it was funny enough for them in this situation. Regardless, it felt good to laugh again after everything they had been through, whether it was a stupid joke or not. The laughter began to subside after a minute, their spirits feeling a little higher than when they walked into the room.
"For a second there I thought you were laughing at my pain," the young officer said. The other shook her head and held her hand up for his.
"Well, maybe a little bit," she grinned before waving her hand. "Lemme see." He raised an eyebrow before giving her his hand. What he wasn't prepared for, was for her to bring his hand up to her lips and kiss where he had hit it like a knight does for a princess. He couldn't really feel it because of the gloves, but he still couldn't help the blush on his cheeks. It was quick and after she pulled away, she lightly rubbed the spot with her fingers.
"There! All better!" she said while giving him a smile. He stood and watched her turn back to the machine while still processing what had just happened. After a moment, he finally got his wits about him and went to try and help her. It took a couple more tries before the amount was correct.
"We got it!" he exclaimed, fist-bumping his partner in celebration. The machine began to beep as the liquid was presumably filling the cartridge. Once it was empty, out popped the cartridge full of the solution. Taking it, Veronica put it into a pouch then walked over to the protocol sheet they had read before on how to take down the plant.
"It says now we have to cool this immediately. But how?" the brunette questioned. They took out the maps and looked over it again. Leon pointed down to the section beneath them.
"There! The low temp lab should do the trick. All we have to do is get the power back on with the module we have and we're set."
"Ok, but there are lickers down there. Do we have things to throw?"
"We're gonna have to figure that out. Let's go!"
They carefully made their way out and towards the ladder, and just in the nick of time before the other Ivys could notice them. Just before they walked into the lounge, Veronica turned on the module only to be spooked by the loud drones it gave off. She quickly switched it off and looked at Leon worriedly.
"It's too loud! They'll hear it for sure!"
"We have to try! How about this, I'm going to go in and see what switch it has to be on and then you can configure it here before we go in. Just cover me, ok?" She went through the scenarios in her head before nodding. The two crept into the room and noticed a licker by the server room door and another in the middle of the lounge picking at one of the dead bodies.
Carefully, they tiptoed through as much as possible then Veronica stopped halfway to watch Leon as he got closer to the breaker box. After a moment, he made it back to her and they both went back into the safer room to set up the module. He told her the setting and then she played around with the knobs. Eventually matching the wavelengths, the module was ready, but she had to keep it turned off until they reached the box.
They made their way back in and worked on getting to the breaker. The lickers hadn't moved yet, so it wasn't so hard. But the next moment was. She held the module up to the breaker then looked at Leon. He grabbed a couple of random cans from the floor then nodded to her. She quickly pressed the button to turn it on and the lickers immediately heard the droning noise. To try and distract them, Leon threw the cans at the other side of the room while she put the module in. It beeped in success and the lights overhead turned on.
She quickly turned it off and watched as the lickers were inspecting the cans near the low temp room. Now they had to get the lickers to move, but they would need a strategy first. That and one of them was stalking their way to try and investigate the disappearing droning noise. Veronica grabbed a hold of Leon's arm and began to quietly tug him towards the server room. Might as well search it while they were there. They had moved out of the way in time because that licker immediately jumped to where they stood, sniffing for any sort of prey.
Making it to the server room, they sighed a breath of relief to calm themselves down. It just kept getting worse. At least the lights were on now. Speaking of which, the servers were on too. They glowed brightly as they lined the walls of the small square room they were in as well as in a column in the middle of the floor. There were some maintenance carts lying around as well as a table with a typewriter on the other side of the room. Searching for anything that looked important, they found a knife, more gunpowder, and another canteen of fuel for the flamethrower.
After searching the room to its fullest, the two carefully set out to get to the low temp room. They carefully walked in that direction, noticing one licker eating at the bodies again, but unsure of where the other one was. On the way there, Veronica found the trophy she threw and picked it up to use again if needed. Just as they were about to turn the corner, they suddenly realized the other licker was on the wall close to where they needed to be.
Keeping their breaths as shallow as possible, they both slowly slid by it, lucky enough to not grab its attention. After what felt like a millennium, the two survivors made it inside the low temp room and the door slid closed behind them. They could faintly hear the licker outside screech after hearing the door beep open and close, but the two sighed in relief knowing that it couldn't get in. Now they just had to figure out how to cool the solution before time runs out.